Ravi Kempaiah
Well-Known Member
- Region
- Canada
- City
- Halifax
One of the most challenging things our team has been dealing with for the last 8 months is logistics into and out of Canada.
Our sincere thanks and gratitude to all customers who have been so patient and cooperative.
Nevertheless, we are confident we will overcome this hurdle, and we are committed to delivering high-quality products and services. Thanks for supporting us in some of the most challenging times.
{Peace}
Our sincere thanks and gratitude to all customers who have been so patient and cooperative.
- Back in late April, our large shipment of bikes to the US got stock because of the new tariff scheme: 25% on E-bikes.
The way customs and border patrol consider an E-bike to be Chinese or not is very peculiar and causes a lot of confusion. Irrespective of where the motor and battery are made, it is the country of origin of frames that defines the country of origin of the whole E_bike.
Our bikes had components from all over the world: Germany (Supernova, Bosch, Racktime), Taiwan (FOX, Magura), Indonesia (Schwalbe), and the Samurai frames were made in Taiwan.
Some of the Photon frames come from a reputed factory in China.
Now, our bikes got stuck in customs for about a month and caused us a lot of pain because even though the frame comes from China, a lot of the assembly for our Photon bikes actually happens in Canada. Unfortunately, the customs, don't consider this at all. - Again, in the summer, one of our shipments got delayed because of some Somali pirates blocking the Red Sea and causing bottlenecks at other ports and ocean trade routes.
We lost about 20 days here. - This is on top of the $30,000 worth of bikes we lost back in May to cybercriminals. In our case, the way this scam evolved was: scamsters posing as a courier company inquired about our bikes and paid for 15 bikes. While paying, they insisted that we run their Amex cards and ship it urgently. After about 14 days, once they received the bikes, they called Amex and did a chargeback. The tricky thing is, they use fake SIM cards and use one address for payment and another for delivery [they say, deliver it to my friend's place]. This incongruency in billing and delivery address will be used as a marker for chargeback. Even after providing all the paperwork to the bank {delivery notice from UPS, etc.}, the bank simply refused to honor this transaction.
Now, then, we had to implement cyber security measures that track criminals and revamp our website. - A few weeks ago, we paid $20,000 to ship 8 E-bikes via air freight, and they have been stuck in Montreal customs for about a month.
- Several of our customers bikes are getting stuck at customs either because the way customs process this or because of a difficult auditor.
We have also had to deal with some difficult customers and thankfully, that number is getting lower now.
Nevertheless, we are confident we will overcome this hurdle, and we are committed to delivering high-quality products and services. Thanks for supporting us in some of the most challenging times.
{Peace}
